How Much Are Your Bills?

AnotherJoe

Norman_Castle wrote: »

https://www.thameswater.co.uk/my-account/water-meters/smart-metering

I expect water company executives are excited about these. I'm not.

Ditto, thats madness and theres no need to know what your water useage is on any sort of basis than quarterly. Looks like they've fallen for the smart meter hype hook line and sinker the only possible saving would be from drive by meter readings anything else, its a big "so what".

Hard to see how they will fit these, how would they power them? Electric meters its obvious. I wonder if these are for flats only? Mine is in the road, a long way from an electricity supply (in fact its under my neighbours lawn!!) And theres woudl be a LOT more to go wrong with them, I wonder how the cost of fitting and maintaining/replacing would be covered by saving on meter readings?
At least with electric meters you can make a (very weak & flaky) case that useage might be minimised (of course, it wont be, but in theory ... ). That doesnt work with water, you arent looking at the little dial spinning roudn whilst you are having a shower. And how long before you can upload some malware into it to lower your apparent readings. far easier than physically by passing a meter.

moneyistooshorttomention

Norman_Castle wrote: »

https://www.thameswater.co.uk/my-account/water-meters/smart-metering

I expect water company executives are excited about these. I'm not.

So - we're all going to be swopped over (like it or no by the look of it....:cool:) from ordinary water meters to smart water meters???

The same argument will apply to them then as to fuel smart meters - ie someone somewhere miles away can sit there at the end of a computer screen and check out whether water and fuel are being used (ie whether the home-owner is in or no).:cool::mad:.

Of course it's not only the case that that's another "nail in the coffin" as regards our privacy - it would also mean that these companies would have the ability to ration our usage of fuel and water (if only "rationing by price" - rather than physically preventing us using the amount we had decided to use ourselves).

Good point re how any smart water meters would be powered. I know mine is some distance away from my house for instance. Does that mean that those of us in that situation have a "get out of jail free" card and it literally won't be possible to change our water meters over to smart ones? Knowing what a couple of my neighbours are like (ahem....caught out being less than honest) then there's no way I would allow an electric cable or the like from my house to that (ie just in case anyone else could tap into it).

gingercordial

Bills for a 2-bed flat, 2 occupants:

Council tax: £131/month over 12 months for our band.

Electricity & gas: £82/month but haven't been here long enough yet to really know if this DD is correct - our old place was £50/month but the new place has very poor insulation and much more need for heating hence we are paying more.

Water: £27.79/month on assessed charge, moving to a smart meter soon apparently and yes I am totally happy with that if it'll save money!

Contents insurance: approx £10/month ie around £120/year, no buildings insurance as we are tenants.

Landline rental and internet: approx £10/month depending on deals available for a year upfront and taking into account cashback, but we actually budget £20/month for this for the following year's renewal as deals are so variable (excess gives a nice dinner out if we don't use it).

TV licence: £12.12/month.

Utilities, phone and council tax are then effectively reduced by 3% as we have a bank account that pays cashback on such things.

gingercordial

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Good point re how any smart water meters would be powered. I know mine is some distance away from my house for instance. Does that mean that those of us in that situation have a "get out of jail free" card and it literally won't be possible to change our water meters over to smart ones? Knowing what a couple of my neighbours are like (ahem....caught out being less than honest) then there's no way I would allow an electric cable or the like from my house to that (ie just in case anyone else could tap into it).

They are battery powered. See here for example, though I cannot say for certain that Thames will be using exactly the same type of battery; in any case the kind for AMI meters are extremely long-lasting (unlike say for a mobile phone where they have to be small and light).

http://www.waterworld.com/articles/print/volume-28/issue-8/advanced-metering-infrastructure/smart-power-for-ami-smart-meters.html

I believe they are using the low-power ZigBee protocol for data upload so this requires comparably much lower battery usage than a mobile phone or wifi router. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee

So no, they will not be attempting to run any cables to your home's electricity supply, and therefore do not need to get your permission to do so.

I have been visited by Thames and told that my installation will be at the pavement, no need to access my property to do it, and hence they only need to inform me as a courtesy that my water will be going off whilst they do it. But personally I'm fine with the idea so that's OK with me.

SpekySquarehead

Is contents insurance a must? Excuse my ignorance.

moneyistooshorttomention

SpekySquarehead wrote: »

Is contents insurance a must? Excuse my ignorance.

Well you arent forced to by law. It's entirely up to you personally. It makes sense to do so imo. Of course - if you literally only have a handful of possessions and they were all pretty darn cheap - then I guess it doesnt matter so much. The vast majority of us have thousands of £s worth of possessions and wouldnt want to take the risk of that much money maybe literally going up in flames. I've known someone that hadnt bothered to insure their possessions - and their house burnt down. That left them in a rather worse position because of that.

Re the house itself - yes you will have to insure it. Anyone with a mortgage has to do so - as their mortgage lender will insist on protective cover for their asset. If you didnt have a mortgage - then it would be your choice as to whether to do so or now. Personally - though my house is detached with one careful owner (ie me) and I dont smoke/have pets/etc - I wouldnt want to take the risk of leaving it uninsured just in case.

anto164

3 bed 1920s semi in the north west. Me and my wife only. All the below are monthly costs

Food: £220ish
Council tax : £168 per month (10 months of payments)
Gas & Elec: £74
Telephone & BB & TV (BT): £34
Water (metered): £33
TV License, quarterly @ £38
House insurance: £50 per month (we didn't shop around when we bought our property. I could easily half this come renewal)
Mortgage: £820
Sickness cover + life insurance (as per terms of mortgage): £34

total costs to live & run the house - approx £1470 per month.

glasgowdan

Our last house, 3 bed semi, was about £90 for elec and gas, £130 council tax then our bills of choice.

Current 4 bed detach is about £150/m gas and elec, £220 council tax plus other usual stuff.

bubbs

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Tell me about it....there was times when I did feel noticeably tempted to get married/living together for all the wrong reasons (ie because it's so expensive to be single). At which point - I reminded myself of the divorce statistics and held out for Mr Right (unsuccessfully in the event - but its better than being divorced from Mr SecondBest).

MINE:
- Fuel (gas and electric) now gone up to £58 a month (ie after some months of them repaying me for having overpaid). I don't think that's bad - considering my house is detached and the central heating is on constantly throughout the day (as I'm retired - so in and out a lot).

- Water (£22 - Welsh Water, I believe, are the second dearest water authority in the country:()

- House/contents/legal add-on insurance - about £250 pa

- TV licence - £145.50 pa

- Broadband/phone - about £38 a month (dependant on whether I've made calls lasting over an hour or someone has only given me a mobile number to phone them on:mad:)

- Council Tax - I try not to think about that - as I'm paying 75% of Band D Council Tax on the house and, in this area, getting very little for my money. Having said that - back in city I've moved from I was bothered about paying 75% of the bill per se (rather than 50% - as a married person would have). We did get quite a bit for our money there though. As that Council would deal with flytipping etc complaints promptly/general handle things promptly/had a decent size library/had decent public transport/put on a lot of free events:). So - that isnt too bad if one gets a decent amount for your money - but if you're somewhere more rural then I confess to not being exactly sure just what my CT is going on (other than a total waste of a bit of it:(:silenced: - you can guess what that is probably.....).

EDIT; Don't forget the NHS bills - though you will have them to cater for anyway. That being dental charges/optician charges/ prescription charges. You've presumably not yet reached the age where you have to think "Right - £2,500 or so to be set aside for 2nd cataract operation if need be - as the NHS will lie and say it's not necessary". "Hang on a minute - better put in another £2,500 into savings - because they'll probably delay the first cataract operation". It makes sense for older people to ensure they have around £5,000 savings just in case of that particular NHS bill (as the odds of it are so high...).,

That has surprised me, as my hubby had his cataracts done on the NHS at 49 , he has always worse glasses always gone to opticians every 2 yrs as had poor eyesight , went 2 yrs ago and was gobsmacked when they said he needed both eyes doing, went optician end of May, 1st one done June, 2 nd one October.
Perhaps its cause only England pay for prescriptions so they have to recoup money somewhere:p

dirty_magic

Don't underestimate food and cleaning products/toiletries spend, it was the only thing I underestimated when we moved out. I always look at my basket and think it looks like a fivers worth of food and it comes to £25.

Also don't max yourself out, you need some disposable income. It's a boring life if you can't afford to do anything, especially if you're living on your own.